


Swimming

by the5throommate



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Coming Out, Everyone Is Alive, Fix-It, Love Confessions, M/M, No Beta, accept georgie rip lil dude, everyone and their grandma is writing scenes like this but WHATEVER, just a lil thing, written in like three hours
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-10-27 04:57:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20754704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the5throommate/pseuds/the5throommate
Summary: The Losers go to the quarry to celebrate IT's defeat. Richie still has something to say.





	Swimming

**Author's Note:**

> There are a million fics like this out right now but I wrote this in my free time today so might as well post it!!! Honestly there are a million different scenes I could write just of Richie coming out/confessing his love to Eddie and the rest and this is just one of them. Might write more but don't want to get repetitive.

Much like she had 27 years in the past, Beverly Marsh took the first leap into the quarry waiting below. Ben followed close behind, taking her hand and leading her a bit to the left, giving room for the other Losers to land. After Ben went Bill, then Mike, Stan, and Richie and Eddie, who instinctively grasped each other’s hands as they leapt.

“You think the water’s cleaner or dirtier now since we’ve last been here?” asked Stan, inspecting a hole torn in his shirt.

“Don’t even fucking start with that, asshole.” Eddie said.

“Either way I would think it’s cleaner than whatever we just came from.” Ben replied.

Mike floated on his back a few feet away, eyes closed, with sunshine and a satisfied grin on his face. “It’s refreshing though, ya gotta admit.” He said. “Gonna do stuff like this every day in Florida. In a pool, on the beach, I don’t care. Just wanna be in the sun.”

“You have any idea how many reported cases of flesh-eating bacteria there’s been?” said Eddie in an all too familiar tone. “The tiniest cut on your skin when you go into the water and you’re eaten from the inside out in like a week.”

“I think that’s only on the Gulf.” Beverly called back as she helped Ben pick bits of mystery goop out of his hair.

“Yeah that’s a Gulf problem, man. I’m thinking the space coast for me. But I’ll travel that whole state. Lots to see. Fuck Disney, though, I’m not dealing with that bullshit.” 

Despite where they had just come from, the Losers still had it in them to laugh. Even Bill managed to crack a few good jokes in a shitty Mickey Mouse impersonation, sans any stutter. Eddie found childish giggles bubbling up out of his chest as he desperately scrubbed at the grime stuck to his skin. 

The quarry began to feel less like a lukewarm drainage basin and more like the local public pool on an evening in late summer. Ben snuck up under Beverly and lifted her onto his shoulders as she squealed, Mike following suit with Stan, telling Bill to be the ref.

“Shit, Bev is really kicking Stan’s ass, Richie, you seein’ this?” Eddie called back to Richie. “Richie?”

Eddie felt a stab of panic run through him, shivering in the warm sunlight. Hadn’t Richie just been right next to him? He spun around as quickly as he could in his waterlogged clothes, scanning the deeper parts of the quarry and the shore for any sign of the man. He had done nearly an entire 360 when he spotted Richie a few yards away from both him and the rest of the group perched on a rock in the water, knees pulled up to his chest and face hidden away in arms crossed on his knees.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Richie, don’t sneak off like that! You scared me half to death!” Eddie nagged as he half walked-half swam over to the rock. “Richie. Richie?” 

The closer Eddie got the more obvious it became that Richie was trembling. Crying.

“Richie,” he said softly, “Are you okay? Rich, what’s going on, man-“

Eddie wrapped an arm around Richie’s shaking shoulders, his other hand coming to rest at the crook of the elbow closest to him. 

“-s that you, Eddie?”

“Yeah man, it’s me, you’re okay-“

“I can’t fucking see, dude, I lost my glasses.” Richie sniffed, bringing his face out of hiding.

“Wha-how, you held them when we jumped, I saw you put them back on-“

“I tossed ‘em.”

“You fucking _what_?”

“I said I tossed ‘em!” he snapped back, avoiding Eddie’s eyes either because he wanted to or because he just couldn’t see at the moment. “Somewhere over there, I dunno.” Richie muttered, motioning vaguely over his shoulder. 

“Richie why in the fuck-you can’t fucking see!”

“’s the point.”

“Have you gone fucking _insane_?” Eddie hissed, trying to keep from shouting and upsetting Richie further. He glanced back at the rest of the Losers, where Stan was now trying unsuccessfully to lift Bill up onto his shoulders as Mike did him. Something inside Eddie told him to let them be, and not call attention over to him and Richie. 

“No, I’m just a dumbass. And a coward.”

“You definitely are a dumbass if you’re still calling yourself a coward after we just ripped the heart out of a fucking space murder clown.”

Richie smiled a bit at that, sending a wave of relief over Eddie. He gave into impulse and cupped Richie’s face in his hands, running a thumb gently over his cheek, stubble scratching at his skin. But even with the smile tears began to leak from Richie’s eyes, chin beginning to quiver. “Eds, you’re such a little bastard,” he muttered.

“Birds of a feather.” Eddie replied.

“I saw you die,” Richie said suddenly, “in the Deadlights. I saw you fucking die and there was nothing I could do.” He took in a shaking breath. “A-and we had to leave you behind, and-“ 

Whatever Richie was about to say was cut off by an uncontrollable sob, and he wrapped his arms around Eddie’s shoulders, pulling him down in a tight embrace, hiding his face in the crook of the other’s neck. Eddie held him back.

“It’s okay, it’s okay Rich, I’m right here.” Eddie soothed. From the other man he heard something like a muffled apology. “Don’t say sorry, it’s okay. Everyone’s here and everyone’s fine. You’re fine. We’re gonna be fine.”

Out of the corner of his eye Eddie saw the others begin to notice him and Richie, Bev already beginning to make her way over, looking concerned. Eddie gave them a nod, telling them to give the two a moment. Beverly nodded back and kept her distance.

Eddie laid his head on Richie’s, rubbing his back as he cried into his shoulder. He stood there, in the quarry, holding Richie with a comforting sway, for a few long moments before the sobs began to taper off to quiet whimpers and sniffs.

“Sorry,” Richie said again, forehead still resting on Eddie’s shoulder. “Shit, I’m so fucking sorry.”

“Dude, it’s fine, there’s nothing to be sorry about. Surprised I didn’t start with you, honestly.”

“I’m gay, Eddie.”

Had one been able to go back in time to the second before the words left Richie’s mouth and met Eddie’s ears and pressed pause on the universe to give Eddie some time to compile a list of any and all of the possible outcomes to this situation that he could conceive of, this exact moment in all likelihood never even made it close to the list. In terms of a verbal whiplash one could receive from a sudden change in conversation topic, Eddie had just gotten his neck snapped in two. 

_ “I’m honored that you trust me enough to tell me.” _

_ “You’re not a coward.”_

_ “I support you.” _

_ “I love you.”_

Eddie didn’t realize none of this was said out loud until Richie said in a scared voice, thick again with the threat of tears, “Oh Christ, please say something.”

A car could be heard in the distance. Ben and Stan were singing a song. A plane passed in silence overhead.

Eddie kissed Richie.

It was a small kiss, in the grand scheme of things. A small moment, made even smaller by all of the moments that had lead to it.

_“We just ripped the heart out of a fucking space murder clown.” _

Richie kissed Eddie. 

It was a small kiss, in physicality and in time. A small moment that would ripple through the rest of their lives like the shockwave of a nuclear bomb. 

Their lips parted, foreheads still pressed together. Eddie’s fingers were still wrapped in Richie’s hair, Richie’s hand still gripping at the back of Eddie’s neck. The two were silent, Eddie’s eyes closed, Richie’s unfocused. A “your mom” joke hung heavy in the air but Richie chose for once to ignore it.

“S-sorry,” stammered Eddie, beginning to pull away, “fuck, Richie, sorry, that was so inappropriate I should have asked-“

“No, it’s okay.” Richie replied, daze-like. “I just wish I kept my glasses now.”

“Why even take them off?” Eddie asked.

“I didn’t want to get the look.”

“The look?”

“Yeah, the look…when people hear you being called something, when people find out, sometimes…sometimes they give you this look, you know? Like…horror. Disgust. Like you were carrying a trash bag and it ripped open and a bunch of, just, I dunno, used fleshlights and a bunch of other trash fell out everywhere.”

“Dude, gross.”

“Yeah, exactly!”

“I’m sorry. That anyone has ever looked at you that way. You didn’t deserve any of it.” 

“Well…heh, thanks, then.”

“You’re welcome. And, uh. Richie?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s good. I’m happy. That you’re-that you’re gay, I mean. Uh. Shit.”

“How is this harder than kissing me?” 

“Then you know. I don’t have to say it.”

“Oh, yeah, I’m totally getting the idea here. But I still want you to say it.”

“Asshole.”

“Not exactly the word I was looking for.”

Eddie let out a huff, picking at the medical tape that still clung to his cheek. “Richie Tozier,” he said.

“Yes?” Richie replied in a singsong voice.

“Shut the fuck up.” Said Eddie, holding up a finger to silence him. “Richie Tozier. I am so fucking goddamn happy that you’re a gay little bastard cause I think I’m fucking in love with you.” 

Eddie braced himself for a dumb joke, a deflection of any sort of emotion that Richie did so well. It never came. He only smiled, laughing a bit as he rubbed tears from his eyes. “Shit, I really wish I could see you right now.” Richie said. “I love you, too. When-when I saw you die, I could only think about how I never told you how much-how much I love you.”

His words were broken with little sobs and hiccups. Eddie held him close again, kissing the top of his head, running a hand through damp hair. “I love you, too. And it’s over now. It’s all over. We’re gonna get the fuck outta dodge, we can go off together somewhere, far away from all this shit.”

“That’s corny as fuck, man.” Richie said as he wiped his face on Eddie’s shirt. “I can’t wait.” 

“Okay, we just gotta find your damn glasses first.”

**Author's Note:**

> This fics song!
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPMF8j4_HBg


End file.
